Reparations: A Tale of War and Rebirth
Ruth Sidransky, 2015
Shadowteams
522 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781505646825
Summary
With the sweep of Sophie's Choice and search for identity of Everything is Illuminated, Reparations is the story of Molly Rose, an innocent catapulted from the streets of New York into the bombed out cities of Austria and Germany at the end of World War II.
This is her story, a story of circumstance and choices, survival and strength, love and betrayal. In the early years in Europe, Molly meets stateless Jews in Austria and Germany. They become her European family.
Slowly, they begin to tell their secrets of horror under the Nazis: mutilation, experimentation, rape, torture, state-induced abortions, relentless cruelty and death. Some turn to smuggling goods, gold bullion and loose silver, to Spain and Italy. Molly and Jacob join them, driving across borders in a specially made car.
Molly has another quest as well: Molly wants a baby for herself and for the surviving Jewish women experimented on by Nazi doctors. Molly wants to undo the wrong done to her sisters by the ultimate affirming act: Molly wants to create new life.
Author Bio
• Birth—1926
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Hunter College
• Currently—Lenox, Massachusetts; Delray Beach, Florida
Discussion Questions
1. The POV in Reparations is quite different from many holocaust books. This centers around two young American Jews and their attempts to help their people as they emerged from the sewers and forests around Vienna. How are the ways Molly and Jacob helped their new friends in Europe?
2. The title of the book is "reparations" and in this case, refers to children. Why were child the reparations the Jewish people sought after WWII?
3. In the love story between Molly and Jacob, one is destroyed by ambition even in the midst of such hubris and destruction. Can you discuss?
4. What does it mean in today's world to remember the holocaust? Is it more important now than ever? Is there anything in the telling of this highly personal story that you can still see at work in the world today?
5. How is the character of Molly a modern woman?
6. The rape by the German soldiers is a turning point in the book. Discuss the meaning of Molly's choice to have the baby and raise it as a Jew.
7. What does the loss of Jacob mean?
8. In what ways does the author create the difficult living conditions in post-war Europe. How does she characterize the people?
9. This book was written in 1950 and put away in a box for many years. Does the book feel more immediate or dated because of when it was written?
10. This book covers one of the most heartbreaking elements of war: How families and lovers find each other when the world has been destroyed. Discuss how Jews remade their family after near annihilation.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)